This Little War
by mildlyattractivegroove
Summary: She'd had no way of knowing, back then, that when she'd trained her sights on Rachel Berry, she was making a life choice. But she'd become ensnared by degrees, so gradually that it wasn't until much later that she could see all the knots binding the two of them together.
1. Your Next Bold Move

Even as Kurt was zipping up her gown for her, she'd wanted to tell him the truth about the whole thing. But she knew it was a risk she couldn't afford to take, not when she was so close to the finish line. It was part of the reason why she'd pressed Finn to move up the date in the first place; the thought of stringing this whole thing out for another couple of months had started to become unbearable, especially after her parents had found out about it.

It was one thing to fool a bunch of seventeen year olds with the drama and pageantry of a high school wedding, but her own dads?

Actually, it had stung a little that they hadn't started laughing the minute she's been forced to confirm for them her intention to marry the boy who still didn't know his rights from his lefts on a good day. And the fact that they still hadn't tried to talk her out of it all these weeks later made her wonder what other stupid situations they had let her wander into out of some misplaced sense of guilt. For example, should they perhaps have told her that it would be a mistake to attempt recreating that scene from _The Way We Were_ in her third-grade run in the Little Miss Lima Pageant?

No. That performance had been flawless. And the judges' failure to recognize that was a product of their own short-sightedness, nothing more.

She'd seen her dads earlier that day, smiling even as they were laying out their rented tuxes on the bed in the guest room. It made her heart ache for them. All they'd ever wanted was for her to be happy, but no matter how hard they'd tried, she'd always seemed one rejection, one insult, one slushie away from shattering.

That wouldn't be a problem anymore after this. By the end of that day, she'd know for sure that she was truly worthy of anything she wanted. And everyone else would know it, too.


	2. This Box Contains

She'd never really planned on taking it this far. In fact, she'd never really had a plan at all; that was the problem. That was how the whole thing had just snowballed out of control until suddenly she'd found herself trying on dresses at Lima's Discount Bridal and looking up recipes for vegan wedding cakes.

All she'd known, originally, was that somewhere along the way, Finn Hudson had started to shine more brightly than any trophy she'd ever coveted.

It wasn't even so much his looks that had sent her salivating. Sure, he had a certain dough-faced, Midwestern charm about him, but, in retrospect, he was no Noah Puckerman or Jesse St. James, either. Instead, what had really made her mouth water was the fact that no matter how badly he screwed up in the classroom or out on the football field, he could still walk through the halls of William McKinley High School like he owned the place. Teachers and students alike would smile at him and pat him on the back when he passed.

He was golden in Lima in a way she knew she wouldn't be until later, until New York.

She hated how much it piqued her jealousy. It made her feel so petty and small that she even cared what the cretins at McKinley thought about her. But when she was really honest with herself, she knew it wasn't so much that Finn had the approval of everyone, it was the approval of one person in particular that had her so worked up: his girlfriend, Quinn Fabray.

Cheerleader Quinn Fabray.

The first time Rachel had seen Quinn sauntering down the hall in her Cheerios uniform, pressed into Finn's side, she'd had to rush to the ladies' room to splash cold water on her flushed face. And that afternoon, she'd gone home and thrown out the box of magazine clippings she'd been keeping under her bed since middle school.

Her dads had never known about the box, thank goodness. It would have broken their hearts to know that even after the epic after-school talk they'd given her in sixth grade about her looks,—otherwise known as "the talk that launched a thousand _Funny Girl_ viewings"—she'd still never quite been able to believe it. She knew they'd devoted all of their energies to making sure she felt wanted and special and beautiful, and she couldn't bear to think of how it would hurt them to discover she'd still always felt not quite right, incomplete in some way, misshapen.

For one thing, it was apparent to her, as early on as age ten, that her fathers' frames of reference when it came to female beauty weren't exactly mainstream. Most girls her age didn't even know who Barbra Streisand was, and she doubted they'd spent the summer shopping for school clothes inspired by their favorite outfits from The Judy Garland Show.

She wanted to stand out, to be a star, yes. But being a star in Lima, Ohio, required a different skill set than the one needed to be a star on a 1960s variety show, and that was a distinction her dads didn't really seem capable of making. The truth, though she hated to admit it, was that she wanted, maybe even needed, a mother to help her navigate the nuances of that difference.

But that was just one more thing she could add to the list of things she'd never have.

So instead, she had the box, and over the years she'd amassed a vast collection of articles and attributes that made up her self-education on what it was to be a modern woman. And the box had been enough, or close to enough anyway, until that morning Quinn Fabray had swished past.

And then it all just seemed like an exercise in futility.

It didn't take long for her to realize she'd never be able to be what Quinn was: blonde, delicate, graceful, classically beautiful with a laugh like tinkling crystal. At best, the words people used to describe Rachel's looks were things like "quirky," "unique," and "ethnic." And whereas Quinn seemed so contained and composed, Rachel knew she was all over the place, her emotions rabidly foaming and frothing out of her at any given moment.

As far as Rachel was concerned, Quinn Fabray was a living, breathing model of the kind of femininity to which she aspired. She was Grace Kelly, real leading lady material.

Rachel didn't need a box full of glossy paper cut-outs to show her how to be the perfect hometown girl now that she could see the real deal smiling widely from the top of a pyramid at every school assembly. And, what's more, as long as Quinn Fabray existed, was there even a point in trying?

No, there wasn't; so she'd thrown out the box.

From then on, she knew she'd never be able to be what Quinn Fabray was. But maybe, just maybe, if she could get Finn Hudson, she could feel like the girl she was was just as good.


	3. Reckoning

At the moment of impact she'd been looking away. It wasn't really meant to be a metaphor (Quinn honestly didn't have the patience for metaphors; it was hard enough for things to just be what they actually were). But the truth was that she'd "taken her eyes off the road," so to speak, in other ways as well, and the accident had just confirmed what she should have already known: that every distraction came at a cost.

She'd let herself get distracted two years before then, too. She'd let herself take a breath, and suddenly all of Lucy's old insecurities and vulnerabilities had come flooding in, and the next thing she had known, Puck was groaning on top of her, and it was fine, she'd thought, because she couldn't feel anything anyway, which meant everything was as it should be.

Both times she'd wound up in the hospital, but the second time, at least, the drugs were better.

When they'd told her about her spinal cord, she'd listened, but only vaguely. The nurses seemed hell-bent on getting her to cry about it, but the impulse just honestly hadn't come. Maybe there'd been time when not being able to walk would have been the worst thing she could have imagined, but not anymore. Not after having had a part of herself torn out from the inside and given away to a complete stranger. Not after Beth.

In fact, she'd only cried twice during her entire stay in the hospital. The first time was the afternoon she'd overheard her mother railing at Shelby over the phone for not having brought Beth to see her, and the second was two days later, when she awoke to the sensation of tiny, chubby fingers curling around the thumb of her right hand.

There were other visitors, eventually, but for the most part, she'd found their sympathy exhausting. That was especially true when Rachel finally turned up looking bleary-eyed and ashen. She'd been wearing Finn's ring on a chain around her neck, and she couldn't seem to stop fidgeting with it. The question was there on the tip on Quinn's tongue, but she hadn't wanted to give Rachel the satisfaction of knowing how desperate she was to hear the answer.

"I'm so sorry, Qu-,"

"Don't," she said. The dryness in her throat made it come out more harshly than she meant it. She was positive that Rachel was genuinely sorry, but she also knew that, with Rachel, it was only a matter of degrees between actual empathy and an acting exercise.

Rachel had gotten that kicked kitten look on her face though, and Quinn honestly couldn't take that, not just then.

"C'mere," she said, with a nod of the head and wiggle of her fingers (even though it was only her legs that were permanently damaged, everything else was still too sore to move).

She'd expected it to hurt, a little, when Rachel touched her, because it always did. What she hadn't expected was for the burn to linger for so long afterwards.

"She didn't stand over you and sing, did she?" Santana asked later. (Santana was the only visitor Quinn had actually looked forward to seeing because she treated the whole thing—the accident, the hospital, Quinn's "condition"—like the epic ass-ache it was).

Quinn shook her head. "I don't believe the soundtrack of 'Crippled Angel: The Quinn Fabray Story,' has been written yet."

Santana scoffed. "You think just because you're in that bed, she's gonna give you the lead?"

"You're probably right."

Rachel hadn't sung.

Instead, she'd done something so unexpected that Quinn still wasn't sure how she felt about it. After cautiously, gently folding Quinn's hand between her own (mindful not to disturb the IV), Rachel had closed her eyes and started to pray, quietly and in Hebrew.

In that moment, Quinn could hear her father spitting it at it her like a curse as she was fleeing the house that night:

"I'll be praying for you."

It was the last time she'd ever seen him.

And in the months that had followed, when she'd tried to slip unnoticed into the back pew on Sunday mornings, she'd seen the faces frowning in disappointment at the ever-growing swell beneath her dress. Every once in a while one of them would even put a hand on her shoulder and say, "We're praying for you, Lucy."

But really, she knew, they were praying for themselves. Praying for God to take away the uncomfortable embarrassment she made them feel; thanking God that it wasn't one of their daughters.

Rachel's prayer had been completely different. In fact, Quinn suspected it might have been the first time anyone had ever prayed for her and truly meant it.


	4. So What

They'd told her that the damage to her spinal cord was "complete," then watched in horror as she'd grinned, briefly, at the turn of phrase. They'd had no way of knowing, of course, that it was the first time Lucy Quinn Fabray had ever felt a sense of completion, of finality, about anything in her life, much less her own body.

But it turned out that modern paralysis wasn't anything like what she'd read in novels. It didn't suddenly make you world-wise, that was for sure. And the doctors didn't just let you relax and take up needlepoint and just _convalesce_ indefinitely.

Nope.

They actually expected her to "actively participate" in her own recovery, which, in Quinn's case, meant sitting through hours of tedious tutorials on all the gruesome procedures she'd have to master in order to care for herself on a daily basis.

She was thankful, for once, that pregnancy and childbirth had come when they had and robbed her of all that ridiculous Puritan modesty she'd been raised with. There wasn't room for it anymore, or for vanity either, not now that her body had become this insolent, unresponsive thing that had to be poked and prodded at all hours of the day and night just to keep the lights on and the water running.

And then, in a flash, she was discharged, sent back out into the world where the collateral damage was only just becoming apparent.

For example, if she had any hope of actually finishing out the school year, it would have to be from home. The fact was, although the cuts had scabbed, and the bruises were yellowing, she was still too broken to be out in public on her own.

It was fine, she thought.

But the first time Mike came over to bring her some of her assignments, he burst into tears.

She'd actually seen a lot of guys cry by then, maybe more than her fair share come to think of it: Mr. Schue, Finn, Kurt, even Puck. But something about seeing Mike so decimated at the sight of her made her feel legitimately afraid of her condition for the first time since she'd woken up in the hospital. Maybe it was because she'd long suspected Mike Chang was the only guy with any real integrity she'd ever gotten to know.

And so that was the moment that she decided.

"Hey," she told him, "don't be like that. I'm ok. I'll be back on my feet in no time, and when I am, I'm going to need some new dance lessons."

He sniffled, smiled, straightened. Maybe he knew it was a lie, and maybe he didn't. Either way, they made it through the rest of the afternoon without incident.

The next thing to go was Yale, but she lied about that, too.

It was just easier to lie, to say she'd deferred, that she was taking some time to recover, get her strength back. Especially when the truth was so ugly and petty and plain: they just couldn't afford it anymore. Not with all the medical bills and what it had cost Judy to upgrade the house to accommodate their new situation.

Judy had actually been a champ through the whole thing, even Quinn had to admit that. It hadn't escaped her notice that the bottles were all gone from the cabinets by the time she'd come home from the hospital, and instead her mother had devoted all of her energy to making sure that every aspect of their lives was adapted for Quinn as much as possible.

Quinn drew the line at the chair, though.

The one she'd come home in was fairly basic. No bells and whistles, no frills, and certainly no laser light show emanating from the wheel spokes like the one Judy had circled in a magazine and set on Quinn's bedside table one night while she was sleeping.

"I think I'll just stick with this one," she told her mother the next day.

"Are you sure?" Judy said, looking up with an expression of fleeting disappointment. She'd taken up perusing medical supply catalogs with an enthusiasm previously reserved for Architectural Digest and the occasional cheap, middle-aged-lady novel. "Because this one-,"

"Mom," Quinn said sternly. It took them both by surprise. With the exception of the night she'd been kicked out of the house for being pregnant, she'd never spoken to her mother in anger, or with any emotion at all, really.

Judy's spine straightened as she closed the catalog she'd been browsing and set it down on the sofa next to her. Quinn felt a trickle of nervous perspiration slide down the back of her neck. Breathing deeply, she waited for it to slide past the line on her mid-back where sensation stopped and dead weight began.

"I really do appreciate everything you've done to make this easier for me," she started. "I hope you know that. I just...want to keep this one thing simple, for now, if I can."

Judy offered a tight smile. "I just want you to have the best of everything you need," she said. "It's the least I can do."

Quinn nodded and wheeled herself back over to the kitchen table to finish working on her Calculus assignment.

A few nights later, Judy was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of harsh thud, followed by a pained cry. Quinn had fallen again trying to get from her shower chair to her wheelchair on her own. Judy sprang into action, grabbing an over-sized towel from the hall closet before gingerly opening bathroom door.

Her daughter was lying naked on her back on the bathmat, her legs still flung haphazardly over the side of the tub. And she was crying.

Judy draped the towel over Quinn's exposed body before asking, quietly, "Are you hurt? Did you hit your head?"

Quinn shook her head, eyes clenched tight. "My wrist," she hissed. "Tried to catch myself."

Judy crouched down next to her daughter on the floor. "Are you ready to get up?" she asked. Quinn nodded, but let out a gasping sob as her mother began to wrap her arms around her torso to help lift her into her waiting wheelchair. Judy steeled herself against it, though it made her hands shake; she'd be calling her sponsor tonight for sure.

She wheeled a sniffling Quinn into her bedroom, helped her onto the bed, and began to dress her. Quinn didn't look at her once.

"I'll get some ice for your wrist when we get done with this," Judy said. "You'll probably need some help getting around for a few days while it's sore. I can try to get a nurse to come out, or maybe one of your friends, if you don't-,"

Quinn huffed out a laugh, trying to imagine Santana aiding her through her daily hygiene routines.

"Ok, but that's just fucking _gross_, Q," she could imagine her saying.

Brittany would probably make a decent nurse, Quinn thought. She was so direct and relatively non-judgmental. But she and Quinn had never really been that close, and Quinn knew she'd tell Santana every gory detail, so the outcome would be just about the same.

"Can we just-," Quinn started. "Can _you_ just help me? I'm sure it'll be fine in a day or so."

Judy practically beamed. "Of course I can," she said.

She finished pulling a t-shirt over Quinn's head, and then reached for the comb on the bedside table. She helped Quinn get propped up in the bed, scooted in behind her, and slowly began combing the tangles from her daughter's hair.

"I know how you must hate this," she said, "but to tell you the truth, I'm sort of enjoying it."

Quinn's head jerked in surprise. Judy set the comb down and put her hands on her daughter's shoulders, petting them lightly. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "It's just that...when you were a little girl, you barely let me touch you." Judy swallowed hard. "You always had to do everything yourself."

"Do you think Beth's that way?" The question was out of Quinn's mouth before she'd even known she was going to ask it. Her shoulders tensed. She and her mother _never_ talked about Beth.

But Judy just wrapped her arms around Quinn with a little laugh and said thoughtfully, "With you and that Puckerman boy for parents, well...I'm sure Ms. Corcoran has her hands full."

Quinn laughed a little, too.

She and her mother had never really interacted this way before, laughing with each other on her bed as her mother brushed her hair. And she was struck with a pang of sadness for the fact that she couldn't really feel the fullness of her mother's arms around her. For all the regrets between them, this new one suddenly seemed harder to take than all the others combined.

"I'm sorry I didn't thank you," Quinn said, leaning back as best she could into her mother's embrace. "For making sure and I got to see her when I was-"

Her throat closed over the memory of soft, chubby fingers curling around one of her own, of a wet baby-kiss pressed to her cheek. She'd been so sure, for a second, that she had died, until, slowly, she'd opened her eyes to see that sweet little face she'd been dreaming of all year.

"I'm sure it wasn't an easy call to make," she finished.

Judy sighed deeply. "No, it wasn't. But then I thought about what I would have wanted if it had been me in that bed, not knowing...not knowing what was going to happen to me. And all I know is that I would have wanted to see my girls."

Judy squeezed her daughter's shoulders once more before excusing herself to get the ice for Quinn's wrist, and Quinn was thankful for the moment of respite to collect her wildly reeling thoughts.

As the spring wore on, she decided not to go to graduation. It hardly seemed worth the effort of going if she couldn't _walk_ across that stage. And the thought of how people might look at her, what they might say; it was all too pathetic.

She still hadn't seen much of anyone other than Mike since she'd been home. She didn't blame them; everyone was just so busy making their plans for graduation, for the summer, for next year. She wasn't surprised to find she'd been lost in the shuffle. And yet, there were still moments, particularly at night when she was too exhausted to fight it off, when she felt that seedling of hope embedded in her chest that perhaps Rachel would turn up.

But it always seemed a ridiculous wish in the clear light of day.

On the night of graduation, she was startled when her bedroom door was flung open to reveal a practically deranged-looking Santana on the other side.

"What are you doing here?" Quinn gasped.

"Your mom let me in," Santana replied gruffly, slamming the door behind her and dropping her bag on the carpet.

"No, I mean...shouldn't you be at a party or something?"

"I just wanted to spend graduation night with my best friend, ok?" Santana said, her voice tightening to a whimper.

"Oh, I get it," Quinn said, setting her book down on her unfeeling lap. "You're drunk."

"Fuck off," Santana muttered, kneeling down to rummage through her bag. "Here, I got you something," she said, getting up to shove a bottle of tequila with a green bow around the neck into Quinn's hands. "Happy graduation."

"I didn't graduate today, remember? My diploma's coming in the mail in two weeks."

"Dios _fucking_ mio, Q. Technicalities,"

"Also, you drank half of this, so-,"

At that, Santana burst into sobs and flung herself onto the bed next to Quinn.

"I'm sorry; I'm sorry," she cried. "I know we're still supposed to be sad about your legs and all, and believe me, we are. You don't even _know_ how many songs we've had to sing about it. But I am going through something _serious_ right now, and everybody is too wrapped up in their Saved by the Bell bullshit to even care."

Quinn scoffed, opened the bottle, and took a deep swig. "Alright," she said. "Tell me what's wrong."

She patted Santana's head and listened to her carry on about how Brittany had to stick around for summer school and couldn't start college in the fall. About how she'd accepted the scholarship in Kentucky but couldn't bear the idea of not being in New York. About how neither of those options had any real room for Brittany in them.

It was a theme Quinn was familiar with: not being sure of what you wanted; or being sure, but knowing that the cost was too high, too cutting, to be borne. Even at the moment of the crash, she hadn't been sure that Yale was the right choice for her; in fact, there had only been one or two things she'd ever really been _sure_ that she wanted, and they were things so unexpected, so terrifying, that she'd given them away, or let them slip past her reach.

And that's what she wanted to tell Santana. That most of the time it was better to just choose without knowing, because certainty could be so brutal, so _unforgiving_. But even if she knew a way to say it, it wouldn't matter; that wasn't how she and Santana were. These were the things unsaid, always, no matter how close to the surface they sometimes came.

Later, when Santana had sobered slightly, smoothed her hair, and dried her tears on Quinn's t-shirt, she offered to take Quinn out onto the front porch for some fresh air. Judy was asleep by then, and Santana stunned Quinn completely by pulling her from the bed and carrying her outside bridal-style. Once they were situated on the wooden swing there, Santana fixed Quinn with a stern look.

"You know, this Brave Little Toaster act is getting fucking exhausting."

Quinn's mouth dropped open quickly before she could close it again. Santana had always had a way of seeing through her lies, but never the ones she expected. She'd learned the hard way that it was better to keep quiet and wait for more information before confessing prematurely to the wrong secret.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"For fuck's sake," Santana said, rubbing at her forehead with her hand. "_Berry_. Why won't you just ask me about Berry?"

Quinn felt a spike of adrenaline in the back of her neck. It spread outward through her arms and into her itching fingertips.

"It's been weeks and weeks. Aren't you even _curious_?"

That little seedling in her chest was making itself known again, and the sips of tequila she'd taken over the course of the night weren't helping in that regard. But then Quinn looked down at her senseless feet, swaying back and forth over the slats of the porch as the swing rocked.

"It doesn't matter," she said.

Santana scoffed. "Like _hell_ it doesn't. If it didn't matter, you wouldn't have been trying so hard to get there in the first place. I mean, why did you even agree to go to that shitshow? Why didn't you just stay home? Nobody would have blamed you."

"Why were _you_ there?" Quinn asked, pointedly.

"I don't know," Santana sighed. "I guess to stop you, or help you, or just _be there_ with you...I guess."

Quinn nodded slightly, a few traitorous tears escaping from the corners of her eyes, but still she couldn't bring herself to say the words.

"Well, for what it's worth," Santana said. "She didn't go through with it; she didn't marry him, Quinn. Not yet."

Quinn didn't mean for her sigh of relief to be so deep, and yet there it was, accompanied by the tiniest hint of a smile.


	5. Prison Prism

"What are you doing, sweetheart?" her dad asked, distracting her from her thoughts.

She was counting stairs again.

It was an equation she couldn't get out of her mind: She'd been upstairs when she'd texted Quinn, then bolted downstairs for her fathers. If the accident had happened just after Quinn had gotten the text, which stair had she been on at the precise instant of the crash?

What selfish, inconsequential thought had been running through her head at the same moment that, across town, Quinn was losing everything?

She'd cried herself into an early sleep that night, wondering how Quinn could have betrayed her like that—not showing up at the wedding after what had seemed like such a heartfelt promise—only to be woken up by her dad a little after 10:30.

Hiram had been pacing around the house from the moment Rachel had closed her eyes.

"Why are you still pacing?" Leroy asked. "It's over, _thank god_. You should be thrilled."

"Something's not right, Leroy," Hiram said, pausing to remove his glasses and massage his temples worriedly. "You saw her earlier. Why was she so upset?"

"She was calling off her _wedding_," Leroy implored. "And, let's face it, our little star does have a flair for the dramatic."

Hiram shook his head. "That's just it; I don't think this was dramatics," he said. "She looked so...," he trailed off.

"So...what?" Leroy asked, incredulous.

"_Afraid_," Hiram said at last. "Our baby looked genuinely afraid for the first time in her life."

"You're exhausted," Leroy said, patting the sofa cushion next to him. "It's been a long day."

Hiram sat down beside him and sighed, putting his head back and closing his eyes.

"Let's just be thankful that we got through this, ok?" Leroy continued. "She's gotten this whole puppy love thing out of her system, and now she can just...focus on her future, her Steinhardt audition."

Hiram couldn't help but smile at that; _his daughter_, auditioning at NYU.

"There, you see?" Leroy said, noticing Hiram's grin. "Everything's fine."

But everything was not fine. They'd seen it almost as soon as they'd switched on the television, a news story about a horrific car crash involving a local teenage girl. And then they'd flashed a picture up on the screen: a poised blonde in a bright red cheerleading uniform.

Hiram reached over and grabbed Leroy's arm. "Isn't that-?"

It was. _Quinn Fabray_. The very same girl his daughter had been crying over earlier that day.

"I just don't understand why she didn't come," Rachel had sniffled into his starched dress shirt, exhausted from almost an hour of sobbing.

Now he knew the reason why.

Leroy offered to be the one to tell her, and Hiram agreed; Leroy was just better at keeping the waters calm in a crisis. And Hiram was still so uneasy over everything that had happened that day. It wasn't long, though, before he caught sight of his daughter rushing down the stairs, pulling a jacket on over her pajamas.

"Why are you just sitting there?" she shouted at him, panic-stricken. "We need to get to the hospital!"

Hiram got up from the sofa and started looking for his keys.

"Baby, we can't go to the hospital right now," Leroy said calmly, slowly coming down the stairs behind her.

Rachel wheeled on him in horror. "What are you _talking_ about? Quinn was in an accident! You said she was in _critical_ condition! I _have_ to be there!" She turned and looked at Hiram imploringly, tears streaming down her cheeks. "_You_ understand, don't you, Papa?"

Hiram didn't know what to do. He'd only seen his daughter this upset one other time, and that had been just a few hours before. Yes, he knew she'd always been both a gifted actress _and_ prone to hyperbole, and that she'd used both attributes to play his emotions in the past. But this was different. She was wild-eyed and trembling; he doubted she even realized she was crying.

He just wanted to hold her, to help her, to give her whatever she needed to make her happy again. But more than any of that, he wanted to _understand_.

From the day she was born, she'd been the light of his life, his Broadway baby, his Funny Girl. But she'd been the biggest mystery of his life, too, full of secrets she'd never tell, boiling over with emotions at the drop of a hat. Sometimes, when things were at their worst, he couldn't help but wonder if all the skeptics and all the bigots had been right, that it was impossible for two men to raise a healthy and confident young woman, that they'd irrevocably damaged her by depriving her of a mother's care.

But then, like magic, everything would be fine again. She'd emerge from her room, head held high. A paragon, a paradox.

But this whole wedding debacle had thrown everything off balance. For the life of him he couldn't understand how his daughter, who for years had never wavered in her devotion to her dreams of a life on stage, had suddenly become so fixated on this ridiculous fantasy of a teenage wedding to the high school quarterback.

Leroy kept telling him not to worry about it, that Finn was harmless, that Rachel was just working out all those romantic notions she'd built up from spending too many weekends watching black and white melodramas with them. The truth was that he'd never really cared for Finn Hudson, and he certainly didn't care for the level of importance his daughter had suddenly ascribed to him.

But, as always, he'd let Rachel have her way. And now he couldn't help but see what a mistake that had been. In the past few months, she'd all but forgotten about Steinhardt, about New York. Everything was about Finn Hudson, and what _he_ liked; how _he_ liked her to be. Hiram had watched as his daughter had collapsed in on herself, becoming quieter and more invisible with each passing day until she started to get that hollowed-out look in her eyes that he recognized from women he'd see at the supermarket or the dry cleaners. The only hint of her old tenacity in recent weeks was the fervor with which she'd been clinging to the idea of this wedding—like a dog with a rabbit in its teeth—and her insistence that it take place in front of an audience consisting primarily (as best as he could tell) of her former tormentors.

And he'd sat back and let it all happen. But enough was enough.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Hiram said quietly, hanging his keys back on the hook by the front door.

He'd expected her to start screaming at him, or maybe even to defy him and go running out the front door, but instead she'd just crumpled, sinking to the floor in a shaking heap, murmuring over and over, "This is all my fault."

That had all been weeks and weeks ago, though, and still she was counting steps, counting regrets.

At the back of her mind she'd always thought that, when it was all over, she'd be able to tell _someone_ the truth, that she'd never intended to go all the way through with the wedding. That she just needed to know, needed _everyone_ to know, that she could have had it if she'd wanted it. That even though she wasn't popular or blonde or even all that _pretty_, she could still get the most well-liked guy in school – take him from Quinn Fabray, no less – and get him to want to spend the rest of his life with her.

Surely _someone_ could understand that, right? Kurt, perhaps, or maybe Blaine? Tina had been her friend once, for a while freshman year...

But now, on the other side of things, she knew she could never tell a soul; she could barely admit it to herself: Quinn had almost _died_ trying to get to Rachel's sham wedding, a wedding designed and choreographed specifically with her in mind. And to top it off, the accident had happened just as Quinn was looking down, trying to respond to one of Rachel's frantic text messages.

It was a detail the local news couldn't seem to let go of: the whole texting-while-driving angle. And when they combined it with Quinn's all-American beauty, her "from-pregnant-teen-to Yale-admitee" story of redemption? Well, even Rachel had to admit it made for a good story, even if it was one she herself couldn't bear to watch.

Finn waited for what, in his mind, must have seemed a respectful amount of time (three days) before he started asking questions about their wedding plans. Rachel did what she could to keep him at arm's length. Calling it off all together didn't seem quite right somehow, and yet, the truth was he didn't even _look_ the same to her anymore. All that thrill and shine, whatever it was she'd seen in him all that time, seemed to have vanished overnight. And what was left behind was just so wholly unacceptable.

It made her stomach turn to think of what she'd almost let happen to herself, and for what reason? She could hardly remember now.

But she didn't have the heart, the spine, to turn him down once and for all, and so she kept him dangling, like his ring she'd taken to wearing on a chain around her neck. A decision for another day.

She knew she needed to see Quinn, but ever since her fathers' refusal to take her to the hospital that first night, not going just got easier and easier. She was terrified of what she'd find there, the wreckage she'd created through her own most grievous fault, and she was terrified of what her guilt might cause her to confess, not only to Quinn, but also to herself.

There'd been a thought, quietly forming at the back of her mind, ever since the moment she'd realized Quinn might not be coming to the wedding, the thought that the real reason she'd wanted Quinn there wasn't to teach her a lesson. Perhaps she'd really wanted Quinn to be there because she'd been praying Quinn would stop her, save her. That Quinn would be the one to tell her that she was too good for all this, to tell her-

It was a ridiculous idea though, as ludicrous as it was shocking. And yet, she couldn't seem to shake it. And it did nothing whatsoever to help with her ever-present guilt, which only strengthened with every day she refused to answer Finn's questions or failed to visit Quinn in the hospital.

As usual, she tried to work out her feelings through song, navigating the Glee Club through number after number about guilt and pain, not to mention all the thinly-veiled tributes to Quinn, songs about overcoming adversity and learning to "fly" again. She was pushing them all harder than ever, but pushing herself the hardest, barely sleeping, hardly eating, and running on a combustion engine of fear and agony.

It was Santana, of all people, who finally came to her aid. It had only been two weeks since the accident, but it seemed like so much longer.

"Have you been to see Quinn yet?" Santana asked. Rachel was startled to find herself alone in the choir room with Santana, but she was finding herself in all kinds of strange situations lately.

"No," she admitted, quietly.

"You should. I think she'd be really glad to see you."

Rachel felt her body tensing, involuntarily, with nervous anxiety. She could feel her heart pounding in her ears. "I very much doubt that, Santana. I know she must hate me for what's happened."

"Do you honestly still think this was your fault?" Santana asked, exasperated.

Rachel didn't, couldn't answer, but clenched her jaw shut against the sob that threatened to escape.

"Listen," Santana continued. "I can tell you right now that the person Quinn's blaming this on is _herself._ And don't ask me why, but I know for a fact that she really wants to see you. So just suck it up and go down there."

Rachel closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "What am I going to say to her?"

Santana scowled in frustration. "I don't know. _Shit_. It's not that complicated. Just _hold her hand_ and tell her you hope she feels better."

Rachel nodded. "Is she – how bad is it?" she asked, not certain she wanted to know the answer, but still feeling as though she ought to be prepared for whatever was in store.

It was Santana's turn to get quiet. She tried to turn away, but Rachel could see the sudden pools of tears that had formed under her eyes. "It's pretty bad," she sighed. "You really should just go see her."

That same evening, without telling a soul, Rachel drove herself over to Lima Memorial. Quinn had a private room on the fifth floor, and as Rachel neared the open doorway, she mentally kicked herself for not having brought flowers. Quinn's eyes were closed, and Rachel could see that she was still badly bruised just about everywhere. She was connected to a number of vaguely threatening-looking machines.

"Even so, she still manages to look beautiful," Rachel thought as she approached the bed, then cursed herself for having thought it. It was just that kind of melodramatic fixation on her part that had gotten Quinn into this mess in the first place.

Just as Rachel took a seat by the side of the bed, Quinn's eyes flickered open and locked on hers, and for a half-second, Rachel saw what she thought looked like a dreamy smile cross Quinn's lips.

"Rachel," she whispered, raspily.

Rachel felt her composure falter. Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, "I'm so sorry, Qu-,"

"Don't," Quinn barked.

Rachel flinched at the sound of it. She'd only been there a few moments, and yet she'd already managed to do everything wrong, everything she'd sworn she wouldn't do. Finn's ring suddenly felt very heavy against her chest, and she found herself wishing she'd taken it off before coming. She reached up and put her hand over it in a ridiculous effort to conceal it.

"C'mere," Quinn said, her ragged tone somehow softer, and Rachel saw the fingers of Quinn's right hand wiggle in a beckoning gesture.

Rachel pulled her chair closer to the bed and reached out tentatively to take the bruised hand in hers. There was an IV coming from the back of Quinn's hand, and Rachel was terrified of causing Quinn any additional pain by accidentally disturbing it, so she settled for clutching softly at Quinn's fingertips. There were a million things she wanted to say, but not one of them seemed right, or fair, or even particularly possible at the moment. And when she looked up, Quinn had closed her eyes again anyway.

"Just hold her hand," Santana had said. "And tell her you hope she feels better." That was what she'd come to do, and for the first time, she realized it was the thing she wanted most. More than her own absolution, more than anything, she wanted Quinn to be alright. And so Rachel did the only thing she could think to do; she closed her eyes and began to say the _Mi Shebeirach_.

Two days after seeing Quinn in the hospital, Rachel flew to New York for her Steinhardt audition. She'd changed her song selection at the eleventh hour; "Don't Rain on My Parade" just didn't feel appropriate anymore. Instead, she belted out a haunting rendition of "No Good Deed," her voice working overtime to hit the right notes, even as her throat threatened to close over the lines, "Was I really seeking good, or just seeking attention?" When it was all over, two of the admissions committee members were wiping tears from their eyes, and the entire panel had congratulated her whole-heartedly on her performance. By the time her return flight had taken off, she was almost positive they'd be offering her a place there in the fall. She was equally as sure, however, that she'd have to turn them down.

Later that night, she returned Finn's ring. He lunged at her, fiercely, before kicking over a lamp and threatening to go off to the Army Recruiting Office first thing the next morning. She didn't even cry, just kept her head down and considered it a bullet dodged.

The rest of the school year came and went, quietly, as did graduation, which went uncelebrated in Berry household. Rachel took a job at The Music Corner as a sales girl and introductory vocal teacher. She looked into auditions at the community theatre. She tried her best to ignore her fathers' palpable disappointment.

And she prayed.


	6. Imagine That

When Santana told her that Rachel wouldn't be going to New York in the fall, Quinn's steely expression was shattered by a peal of unexpected laughter.

"Damn," Santana said, vaguely horrified. "That's cold, even for you."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Quinn gasped, trying to regain control although her shoulders still shook with unexpressed giggles. "It's just so ridiculous. I mean, I treated her like _trash _for most of the last four years, and now, when she's finally gotten a chance to get away from here, she won't take it...because of _me_. It's absurd. Isn't it?"

Santana frowned. "You know, I was originally only playing along with this whole impending disaster you've got going on for my own personal entertainment. But now I'm starting to think you two are both just twisted enough to actually deserve each other."

"Don't say that," Quinn snapped. And when Santana looked up, she saw the tears in Quinn's eyes.

The truth was that Rachel's decision not to leave Lima made Quinn feel a lot of things, some of which were easier to accept than others. The anger, as always, came easily. It was the same anger that had boiled out of her last year in the auditorium when she'd screamed at Rachel about "getting it right," the anger she had tried so hard to conceal when Rachel had confided in her about the engagement.

Along with that anger, though, came a familiar guilt. When she'd choked out those words last year – "and you can't hate me," – even as she was saying them, she knew she was wrong. _Of course_ Rachel could hate her, _should_ hate her. Quinn had spent years being pointedly vicious to her, and no amount of whatever she'd tried to offer in the past year (détente? respect? quiet encouragement?) could change that. By the time the slushies had stopped, and the MySpace comments had been deleted, the graffiti painted over, the damage had already been done. Rachel had already become the girl more worried about making friends than making it out, the girl who believed she needed Finn Hudson in order to survive. Even something about the way she sang had changed, and Quinn couldn't help but ache at the thought of the role she'd played in that.

Hardest of all to stomach, though, was that selfish little sliver of happiness she felt. That vague notion that somehow, by some awful miracle, their time together had not run out, not just yet. That there was still a chance to change things between them, if only she had the faintest idea of where to start.

On that score, however, fate intervened in the form of a dinner invitation from Shelby for a night the following week.

"It's nothing big, Quinn. Just a few neighbors. I thought you might like to spend some time with Beth. Bring your mom, if you want. I invited Rachel, too."

Quinn swallowed hard and said she'd have to call her back.

"What'd you expect, Q?" Santana laughed into the phone three minutes later. "I mean, you knew she was Rachel's mom when you handed your kid over to her. You guys are practically related now."

"You're really enjoying this, aren't you?" Quinn said tensely.

Santana sighed. "Look, you want to spend time with your kid, and I _know_ you want to see Rachel, so what's the problem?"

"I guess I just didn't think that everything would have to be all _tangled_ together like this."

"Seriously? You didn't?" Santana asked, incredulous. "Have you not been paying attention to a single thing that's happened in the last four years?"

It actually wasn't a bad question, Quinn thought.

The thing was, she'd had no way of knowing, back in sophomore year, that when she'd trained her sights on Rachel Berry, she was making a life choice. Back then, The Girl with the Unicorn Sweater had been little more than a target, a repository for all of Quinn's pent up loathing. She didn't even know anything about her, really. And she liked it that way.

"Better not to know too much about your enemy," her father had always said. "It humanizes them too much; makes it harder for you to do what has to be done."

And maybe he'd been right.

But she'd become ensnared by degrees, so gradually that it wasn't until just that moment, with Santana's question ringing in her ears, that she could see all the knots binding the two of them together.

It made her stomach tighten with anxiety.

Beth was, if not the most obvious, certainly the most permanent of those connections, and she had to wonder, now that she was actually thinking about it all, if everyone else had been questioning her motives when she'd allowed her baby to be adopted by Rachel's biological mother. And then it occurred to her that perhaps Rachel, even now, assumed she'd done it at least partly out of spite.

But the truth was, she hadn't found out that things between Rachel and Shelby hadn't quite worked out until it was too late. At the time, all she'd really known was what she'd seen that day in the auditorium at Carmel. How drawn to Shelby Rachel had been, how her face had suddenly refracted into a thousand different, glorious expressions upon hearing Shelby's voice. There wasn't a trace of that phony, show-face admiration Quinn was used to seeing on Rachel's face when she hung from Finn's arm. Something far more powerful was at work. The earth under Rachel's feet had suddenly and irrevocably shifted, and Quinn had felt an odd mixture of gratitude and embarrassment at having been the one to witness it.

It had been intriguing, and maybe even a little bit _alarming_, to watch the person Quinn easily thought of as the most captivating performer she had ever seen come so completely under the spell of someone else. Was that what she'd been thinking of that afternoon two years ago when Shelby had inexplicably appeared at her hospital bedside? That Shelby _had_ to be no less than wonderful if she could have that kind of effect on _the_ Rachel Berry? Or had it been something else? A familiarity in Shelby's features that clearly reminded her of the gentlest, most forgiving person she'd ever known? The fleeting notion that something of Rachel's goodness _had_ to have come from this woman, and that if there was even a fraction of a chance for her daughter to be raised by someone half as sincere and open-hearted as she knew Rachel was at her core, then she absolutely had to take it?

Or had she simply been exhausted, and sore, and heartbroken, and _desperate_ to make a decision for once?

Even now, she couldn't quite say. But she'd obviously been in no position to think it all the way through at the time. And so with a weak, teary-eyed nod, she'd unknowingly cast a net around the lot of them, drawing them permanently and inexorably together.

But Beth certainly wasn't the only living link between them. Finn was another person she and Rachel would always have in common. Quinn hated to admit it, but the real reason she had even noticed Rachel in the first place was that _Finn_ had noticed her first. Sure, Rachel had always been a peripheral annoyance, a potential victim of Quinn's scattershot style of social tyranny, but it was Finn's sudden attention toward Rachel at the start of their sophomore year that had guided and narrowed Quinn's own focus.

When she thought of how hard she'd worked, what she'd put herself through just to be seen as something other than a disappointment: the days without eating; the nights without sleeping; the constant work, not only to reshape her body, but to lighten her voice, soften her mannerisms, to learn to move through the world the way she saw that other girls did; and then, at last, that merciful, surgical rearrangement of her face—

Finn Hudson (and more importantly, the long, sheltering shadow his persona cast) was supposed to be her reward for all that. People didn't think twice about the girlfriend of the golden boy; they didn't look past the picture the two of them presented together. And, most importantly, Finn didn't ask questions; so she didn't have to either. And the prospect of losing that protection, that peace of mind, to someone who hadn't made her sacrifices, wasn't making her kind of effort, was practically unthinkable.

But everything had gotten so horribly complicated by the strange heat that confrontations with Rachel always left under her collar, and later, further complicated by the fact that she couldn't stand the thought of Rachel Berry getting lost in the same shadow she'd once been so desperate to hide.

She'd screamed at Rachel in frustration that day in the auditorium, desperate to convince her of Finn's unworthiness, even as she claimed to be pursuing him for herself.

And then she'd actually _slapped_ Rachel in the bathroom at the prom.

After that, she stopped caring full-stop about Finn Hudson. Whatever benefits there'd been to having him in her back pocket stopped being worth what trying to keep him there had made her do. It wasn't worth hurting Rachel over, not anymore, and certainly not like that.

By senior year, whatever pretense of a feud there was left between them had vanished. She'd admitted the truth the previous summer, to herself, first, and then, half-drunkenly to Santana. And from then on, right up until the moment of the crash, all she'd really wanted to do was _be there_, in any way she could, even if it meant watching Rachel allow herself to become obscured forever.

There were other, smaller knots, too, though. Little loops of string fastened around her heart and leading, without question, toward Rachel. Connective tissue formed over years of shared experiences, stolen moments, inexplicable contact. Over time, they'd become each other's confessors in some strange way, even if there were still certain truths neither of them were ready to admit.

In the end, the decision to accept Shelby's invitation turned out to be just as easy as Santana had said: she wanted to see Beth, and she didn't _not_ want to see Rachel. But actually _getting_ there had proved slightly more difficult. Shelby's building wasn't exactly a model of accessibility, and Quinn ended up having to be carried into the apartment by one of Shelby's neighbors before being set back down in her chair, which had to be collapsed and carried in separately. Shelby's neighbor been every bit the gentleman about the whole ordeal, but still Quinn bristled with frustration. It was like the world was closing in on her; there just wasn't enough space. And for Quinn, who had grown accustomed to being able to slip in and out of tight spaces with relative ease, the bulk of her chair, of her unmoving limbs, was starting to make her feel too much like Lucy. Awkward, cumbersome Lucy, who could never make herself fit anywhere.

All that was forgotten, though, when she caught sight of the curly-haired toddler drinking juice from a sippy cup on Shelby's sofa.

Every once in a while, a shadow of a feeling would pass through Quinn. She'd look down at her feet, her legs, and it was almost as though she could feel them again, almost as if they were still active participants in the mangled set of parts that made up her body. For a split second, she'd almost believe that with enough concentration, she could get up from her chair and just start walking again. And then, just as quickly as it had come, the phantom feeling would be gone.

It was the same with Beth. Quinn had only ever really seen her a handful of times, but each time, she'd been struck with a case of that phantom feeling, as though Beth were still a part of her, despite the fact that they had been severed from each other long ago.

There in the living room, Beth's eyes were fixed on her, her little mouth agape. Quinn knew it wasn't an expression of recognition; she was more than likely just trying to make sense of the sudden presence of a stranger in the apartment and the unfamiliar apparatus of the wheelchair. And yet, Quinn couldn't help but hope that perhaps Beth could somehow sense the connection that still lingered between them.

"She'll probably fall asleep soon," Shelby said, crouching at Quinn's side. "Why don't you go visit with her while I finish up in the kitchen?"

Quinn nodded absently before taking a deep breath. It seemed a shame to be so deathly afraid of someone so tiny, but then again, her worst fears had always seemed to manifest themselves in small packages. Nervously, she wheeled her chair up alongside the sofa as Beth eyed her cautiously.

"Hi, Beth," Quinn said, in as bright a tone as she could muster, mindful of Beth's obvious trepidation. "You probably don't remember me; I'm Quinn."

Beth raised an eyebrow skeptically, causing Quinn's heart to swell with pride, despite her disappointment over having been met with such a decided lack of enthusiasm. They watched television together in silence for about twenty minutes or so, until Quinn looked over and saw that Beth's eyes were closed, her little head resting on the arm of the sofa. It was then and only then that Quinn dared to reach down and run her fingertips across Beth's forehead, lingering ever so briefly along one soft, baby-blonde eyebrow.

Shortly after Beth was taken to bed, Shelby's guests began to arrive: a few neighbors (including the one who had carried Quinn inside) and Rachel who, aside from a sad little half-smile when she entered, seemed to be doing her best to avoid Quinn altogether.

"So, Quinn, how's your physical therapy going?" Shelby asked, good-naturedly when the food had at last been served. "Any chance we'll see you out of that chair by the end of summer?"

"Actually, um," Quinn paused and cleared her throat. She'd smiled and fibbed her way through questions like this countless times in the last several weeks. But something about the thought of Beth sleeping innocently just a few rooms away from where they were sitting made it impossible for Quinn to lie, even with Rachel's expectant expression shining in her peripheral vision. "My injury is permanent, so-"

She was interrupted by the sudden scuffle of Rachel's chair being pushed away from the table, soon followed by the slamming of the bathroom door. Had she been alone, Quinn probably would have started laughing, but the stunned looks on the faces of Shelby's guests made her think better of it.

"Would you excuse me just a moment?" Quinn said, in a polite tone that sounded eerily reminiscent of her mother's voice.

She cautiously made her way across the living room and toward the bathroom.

"Rachel?" she quietly called through the locked door. When there was no response, she gently wheeled herself forward, tapping her chair's footplates against the door. "You know, it's pretty impolite to storm off from someone who can't properly chase after you," she said.

That seemed to do the trick, and she immediately heard the click of the lock being undone. But no sooner had Rachel revealed herself than her face crumpled into another round of sobs.

"I'm so sorry," Rachel said, sniffling. "You must think I'm being just completely _ridiculous_. I wish I could get a hold of myself sometimes."

Quinn wanted nothing more at that moment than to pull Rachel into her arms, if for no other reason than just to muffle the sounds of her crying, but as odd as it seemed, Rachel was towering over her, and Quinn couldn't lean far enough forward to try to pull her into any kind of suitable embrace. She raised her arms to gesture for Rachel to lean down, but before she could register what was happening, Rachel was climbing into her lap.

She was suddenly acutely aware of the room full of people just a few feet away, awaiting their return from the hallway. It was easier to focus on that, on the sheer absurdity of their present situation, than it was to give in to the feeling of Rachel's arms draped around her neck, the weight of Rachel's head resting against her chest.

"It's my fault," Quinn sighed, giving in to the moment. "I should have told you before."

Rachel shook her head against the crook of Quinn's neck. "No," she said, her breathing still stilted from having cried so hard. "It isn't any of my business. You don't owe me anything."

Quinn scoffed. "Of course, I do. We're friends, right?"

Rachel lifted her head for a moment and nodded, her tear-streaked face suddenly beaming with delight.

It was infectious; Quinn couldn't help but smile back, continuing, "Friends tell each other the truth."


	7. Flood Waters

After that moment in the hallway outside Shelby's bathroom, Rachel couldn't stop thinking about this thing that had happened when she'd been about six or seven years old.

There'd been a little blonde-haired girl named Lindsey in her dance class, a knobby-kneed slip of a thing with porcelain skin and the most perfect little button nose Rachel had ever seen. All of the other girls would crowd around and fawn all over her before and after class, and (thinking about it years later) Rachel supposed she could have just joined in with them if she wanted to talk to Lindsey. But even at that age, she'd had a sense that that wasn't what she really wanted. It wouldn't have been good enough to be just one among the throng. She'd wanted something more, something _special_.

For months she'd been relentless in inviting Lindsey over to her house. And for months, Lindsey had turned up that perfect little nose and ignored her. Until finally, inexplicably, Lindsey had turned to her while they were waiting in the wings at the spring recital and said with a sigh of frustration, "_Fine_. I guess we can be friends. Just..._don't tell anyone else._"

It had taken Rachel _years_ to realize that she probably should have been offended in that moment. At the time, though, all that had mattered was that Lindsey had said she'd wanted to be friends after all, and the fact that she'd said she wanted it to be a secret had only just played right into Rachel's dramatic sensibilities. It had made her blush and set her insides fluttering so wildly that she'd _almost_ forgotten the steps to their routine.

It didn't even matter that Lindsey had never actually come over to Rachel's house even once after that; Rachel had still spent the whole summer smiling.

And she'd felt that same giddy, fluttering feeling in the hallway at Shelby's apartment with Quinn.

Well, _almost_ the same.

It was made different somehow by the softness of Quinn's voice, the warmth of her skin, the fact that Rachel could feel Quinn's heart pounding in her chest as she called them "friends." The physical closeness they'd shared that evening was something Rachel had craved for a while without really knowing it, and for a while longer without really knowing why.

And it was made different also by the rest of what Quinn had said:

_Friends tell each other the truth_.

It had sounded so reassuring at first, but somewhere along the way, on the drive back home from Shelby's, it had really hit her, and she'd had to pull over to the side of the road to catch her breath.

_Friends tell each other the truth_.

It made her hands shake and her vision go blurry.

Telling Quinn the truth meant telling the truth about the wedding. And in order to tell the truth about the wedding, she'd have to _know_ what that truth really was. And no matter how many times she went over it in her mind, there were still parts of that day—and the days that led up to it—that she just didn't understand.

* * *

For just a moment that afternoon, after Kurt had given her dress his seal of approval, she'd been alone with her reflection.

With a sigh, she'd forced herself to admit that she looked pretty enough. More importantly, she looked the part. It wasn't the way she'd always dreamed she'd look on her wedding day, but that was, in part, by design. At every stage of the hurried planning of this ordeal she'd been careful never to select anything that would have been her first choice. This wasn't for real, after all, this was just for show. Just a way to find out what would happen, to show them all that it _could_ happen—if she wanted it to.

"Do you ever fantasize about your own funeral?" she'd asked Kurt the year before. Maybe that had been the question that had set this whole scheme in motion. At the time, Kurt had just looked at her, horrified, but she'd paid him no mind.

When she'd first seen the 1973 musical version of _Tom Sawyer_—eight years old, home sick with a fever, curled into a ball in her Daddy's old, oversized armchair—she'd spent days afterward wondering what it would be like to sneak a peek at her own funeral. Would the girls at school who'd called her a freak, the boys who'd barked at her on a routine basis, come and cry and feel sorry for how they'd treated her? Would her music teacher give a speech about what a shame it was that Broadway never got to experience the enormous talent of little Rachel Berry? Would Lindsey from her dancing class finally admit to all their classmates that she and Rachel had secretly been friends all along?

In the end, it had been only the thought of her fathers that had kept her from indulging too deeply in this daydream. One night, after a particularly harsh day at elementary school, she'd been so deeply engrossed in her funereal fantasies that she could actually see her Daddy's tear-streaked face, could hear her Papa's sweet, breaking voice as he stood over her coffin singing the "Little Bird" song from _Fiddler on the Roof_:

_You were always such a pretty little thing, everybody's favorite child, gentle and kind and affectionate, the sweet little bird you were._

With a gasp, she'd burst into tears, jumped out of her bed, and run into her fathers' room, crying, "Daddy, Papa, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you sad. I'm so sorry, Papa!"

Her Papa had scooped her up into his arms and patted her back, trying to comfort her. "Aw, honey. You're alright," he'd said. "You must have had a nightmare. It's ok."

"You make us so happy, sunshine," her Daddy had said. "Don't cry."

She'd sobbed until she'd lost her breath, and had vowed never again to daydream about her own demise. Maybe that's what had made this whole wedding ruse so appealing. It was a way to get that sneak peek at people's reactions without breaking the hearts of the parents who had always loved her so fiercely and unconditionally.

The other girls were waiting for her downstairs on the sofa, pretty maids all in a row. Whatever else was going to happen that afternoon, Rachel knew she'd always have the small triumph of having gotten Santana Lopez into her living room, and in a bubble gum pink bridesmaid's dress no less. The last time she'd asked Kurt though, Quinn was still missing.

She picked up her phone from her night table and fired off a nervous text message: _Are you still coming? Everyone's waiting for you._

Under her dress, Rachel's knees were shaking. Quinn was the lynchpin of this whole plan, and up until just a few hours ago, Rachel hadn't even been sure Quinn would come. But then they'd talked; Quinn had called her up out of the blue and asked her to meet her at the Lima Bean that very morning, and she'd said she wanted to come to the wedding after all, if she was still invited, to offer her support.

Rachel should have felt relieved at that. It was the kind of validation she'd been dreaming of for years. Quinn Fabray, _the Quinn Fabray_, practically begging to be re-invited to her wedding, to support her in her marriage to the boyfriend she'd taken from her more than once. But there'd been a sadness in Quinn's voice that had been so disconcerting. Now wasn't the time for sentimentality, and Rachel knew it, but still...she couldn't help but notice how Quinn had barely been able to look her in the eyes, how she'd had to stop to take so many deep breaths, almost as though—almost as though she were trying to keep herself from crying.

Rachel's reflection frowned back at her, and she cursed her artistic intuition. Why did she have to notice every little thing? And what did it matter if Quinn was upset about the wedding? Wasn't that at least part of the point?

She wasn't sure anymore.

Every so often lately, the combination of Quinn and herself and a wedding dress would reconfigure in her mind, and the whole thing would shift suddenly from revenge fantasy into...something else, something that made her feel light-headed and jittery. She felt a flood of heat rush to her face, and she had to sit down at the foot of her bed.

When all of this had started, when the first inklings of the marriage plot had crept into her mind, Quinn Fabray had been barely more than a caricature to her, a wicked queen dressed in the guise of Rachel's own version of idealized femininity. It had almost seemed too perfect, actually, that her number one tormentor was blessed with every one of the girlish attributes she secretly coveted. Oddly enough, it was Finn who had seemed more real to her in the beginning, concrete and sturdy not only because of his imposing stature or supposed war hero parentage, but because of the inexplicable respect he commanded. At the time, he seemed to her to be masculine in a way her fathers never could be. And in that sense, maybe pursuing him had been a bit of a rebellion on her part, too.

But she thought of Quinn differently now. Maybe it had started with the pregnancy, the first sign of something amiss beneath that perfect veneer. She would have had every right to look at that episode the way everyone else had: the well-deserved fall of the mighty. But instead it had changed her perception of Quinn in a completely unexpected way. She'd admired the strength Quinn had shown in those months as she was shuffled from house to house, and she'd cursed herself for lacking the courage to offer Quinn a place to stay in her own home. But perhaps selfishly, she'd found herself fixated mostly on the softness those months revealed in Quinn, the bits of quiet encouragement Quinn had begun to express for other the members of the Glee Club, a moment (once) when she'd allowed Rachel to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Rachel had always expected Quinn's body to exude the same iciness her personality once had, and so she had been shocked to feel the warmth of life radiating from Quinn's skin.

Perhaps that was the first moment Quinn had ever seemed real to her.

Then there had been the whole Lucy debacle, another reminder of Quinn's supposed lack of perfection. But those images of a pre-teen Quinn had done little to shake Rachel's reverence. Instead, she found herself thinking that even Marilyn Monroe had once been just Norma Jean Baker; Judy Garland had been Frances Gumm. And finding out that Lucy Quinn Fabray hadn't just hatched from an egg fully-formed as the ghost of Grace Kelly only made Rachel want to know her more, to understand her more.

Just then, as she'd been thinking all of this over, there'd been a gentle tap on the door, and Kurt had poked his head in.

"Quinn's still not here," he'd said gently, "but I think we have to get started. The justice of the peace is threatening to leave soon, and Finn's starting to get antsy."

"Just give me one more minute," she'd replied, hoping he wouldn't notice the wavering of her voice.

Up until that day, Rachel had never really worried about this last part of the plan, the part that was waiting for her downstairs in the living room. The way she saw it, it was no big deal. She'd just appear to lose her nerve, say she wasn't ready. They were too young, and she wanted to wait to do things the right way. Everyone would understand that, certainly. Wasn't that what they had all been telling her for the past few months?

And Finn. He might be disappointed, but he would understand. She wouldn't be rejecting _him_; she'd just be asking for more time. She still loved him, after all.

Didn't she?

Rachel felt herself break out into a cold sweat. Just as Quinn had become more real and vital to her over time, Finn had become more cartoonish and less deserving of all her admiration. His apple pie grin belied the fact that underneath it all, he was really just a coward and a bully. He'd never really stood up for Kurt the way he should have, and the mere thought of the way he'd outed Santana earlier in the year made her stomach turn in revulsion.

She'd suddenly realized he was no longer the kind of person she longed to share a stage with, much less her life. She didn't love him. And she didn't want to do this anymore.

Her fingers had faltered as she'd tapped out a garbled, frantic message to Quinn before running for the safety of her fathers.

And then the world had gone dark.

* * *

She was still on the shoulder of the highway between Shelby's apartment and home.

As she wiped the tears from her cheeks, she found herself wishing that she could go back to that morning at the Lima Bean with Quinn; wishing that she had reached out and touched Quinn's sweet, sad face, just as she had that time last year at the prom; wishing that Quinn had said whatever it was she'd been withholding that day behind those watery eyes and forced smile.

With a deep intake of breath she thought to herself that if friends told each other the truth, maybe she and Quinn weren't meant to be friends. But what was the word for two people forever bound by the secrets they kept from one another?


End file.
